


I Get by With a Little Help from My Friends

by leiascinnamonrolls



Series: Team Spider-Moms [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: #teamspidermoms, Asgardian alcohol, F/F, and also her enabler?, if peter minded his own business nothing would ever get done, introducing thor to the wonders of ice cream, mostly sober love confessions, natasha was part of the black widow ops program, or rather like confessions, so she’s got some of that fancy super solider serum in her veins, thor is natasha’s emotional support alien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24275752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascinnamonrolls/pseuds/leiascinnamonrolls
Summary: While Natasha is pining away, Thor decides to take matters into his own hands. What ensues is a half-drunken plot to get Natasha to confess her feelings.This is why Natasha shouldn’t drink
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Natasha Romanov, May Parker (Spider-Man)/Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov & Thor, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker & Thor
Series: Team Spider-Moms [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752325
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46





	I Get by With a Little Help from My Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “With a Little a Little Help from My Friends” by The Beetles.
> 
> “Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends  
> Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends  
> Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends”
> 
> Yet again, shout out to Michaela. She’s the light of my life who gives me prompts and inspires me to write my things.
> 
> This time, the prompt was twofold:  
> 1\. Natasha finding out May is a lesbian. Gay Panic™️ ensues.  
> 2\. Natasha getting drunk. Like reeeeeaaaalllyyyy drunk and finally admitting her feelings to May. Cookies if it involves Thor throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her off. 
> 
> So here it is. Enjoy :)
> 
> Oh, I labelled this “Teen and Up” because there’s drinking? I’m not sure how the rating system really works

As a rule, Natasha doesn’t drink. Most people think it’s strange for a Russian, especially one like her who has seen some things. Natasha thinks this is just stereotyping, but says nothing. She’s good at that. 

To be honest, it’s not like it effects her. The Red Room has been very careful to make sure their agents couldn’t get intoxicated. It could compromise a mission, get the agent killed. The Red Room hated to lose a solid asset to a little too much vodka. They took preventative measures, much like the other alterations to her body. Some days, she’s lucky if she can even feel the buzz in her veins due to too much coffee. 

Not that the Red Room could ever have planned for an alien. Especially not an alien who liked to share his liquor. His very strong liquor. Special Asgardian liquor not meant for mortal men. 

“I see that your heart is hurting,” Thor had said, clasping her arm in greeting. “You yearn for someone who does not return these emotions. Or so you believe. Come. We shall drink until we no longer remember the names our fathers gave to us.”

Now, Natasha knows that she shouldn’t have accepted. She understand that when a large alien twice your size invites you to get drunk, it’s probably not a good idea. But damn, if he isn’t right. And she could use a strong drink, even if she doesn’t get drunk. She just wants something to wash the taste of bitter heartache and longing out of her mouth. 

This is her first mistake. 

She’s not one for heartache and longing. Normally, that sort of stuff gives her the urge to vomit. But here she is, moping about like a lovesick puppy.

Oh, if Clint could see her now... He would certainly be teasing her to make up for all the times she had teased him about Laura. 

“Now, normally I would never offer this drink to mortal Earthlings. But you, Natasha Romanov, are no ordinary Earthling.” Thor is standing behind the bar— of course the compound has a bar. It’s a Stark Compound. She’d be worried if she could find the energy to care about Stark’s drinking right now. 

She’s also not his mom. 

“Ain’t that the truth,” she mutters, sliding carefully on to the bar stool across from him. 

The large man begins to line up two shot glasses. “This serum that Captain Rogers has in his system, you have as well, yes?”

“A variation of it, yeah.” Natasha eyes him warily as he pulls out a flask from some unseen pocket in his armour. Probably a pocket specifically for booze. 

Maybe they all had a collective drinking problem. 

“Good. Otherwise this could have gotten messy.” Thor pours a full shot into each glass before sliding one closer to her. “Now drink up.”

“Is this gonna kill me?”

“Probably not.” He lifts his glass towards Natasha, and clinks them. “Skál”

Natasha lets out a sigh and decides that if she’s gonna die, might as well be now. “На здоровье.”

It burns on the way down, like all Earth liquor, but there’s something else underneath that. Something celestial in origin that makes Natasha’s toes tingle and her head swim. She’s never truly experienced this feeling, that warm and heady feeling that comes from good booze, but in this moment, she understands the appeal. Especially if it feels anything like this. 

When Natasha doesn’t pass out or die, Thor smiles and pulls the glasses towards himself again.

“Another,” he cries, and Natasha has to smile back. 

“Another,” she nods. And this is her second mistake. 

This second mistake leaves her four shots in and moping into the shot glass. After shot one, she had been pretty chipper. But each shot brought her closer and closer to maudlin. And staring into shot number five, she’s in the depressive moping stage of her own grief and pining. 

She never thought she would be whining about her love life to a golden retriever of an alien king of space Vikings, but here she is. 

And despite her own fears of being unlovable, as she had very embarrassingly explained in rather excruciating detail to Thor, it really comes back to one problem: 

“And to make matters worse, May is straight.”

“Aunt May isn’t straight,” a voice says from the doorway. 

“What?” Natasha croaks, looking up from her glass, surprised to see Peter standing there. Oh god, she hopes he hasn’t been there for too long. It’s obviously already longer than she’s comfortable with. 

“If you’re talking about Aunt May, she’s not straight. She’s actually pretty gay. Well, bi, technically.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Parker?” Nat whines, dropping her head to the table. 

“Um, no. Why? You’re not like... a homophobe or anything, are you?” Natasha can hear in his voice that Peter’s brow furrows in concern. 

Natasha splutters, sitting up straight. “What? No, I’m not a homophobe, Peter. That would make things pretty awkward around here since I’m sure like a solid 85% of the Avengers are queer.” Including myself, she thinks. 

“Yeah, this building is pretty gay. Do you think it’s something in the water?” 

“I don’t know, but I know Fury brings his own bottle of water from home. That bastard.”

Thor takes this moment to interrupt their burgeoning conspiracy theory. “Young Peter Parker, are you saying that your aunt is also attracted to females?”

“Um, yes. Mr. Odinson, Sir. Or Your Highness. Your Grace.” He is floundering, obviously never having been addressed by Thor before and not knowing how to respond to him. Natasha would usually find that funny, or try to help him out, but her own inebriated brain is working through this new revelation as quickly as it can. 

“Is it possible that your aunt, May Parker, is also interested in Natasha Romanov?” Thor asks, a wide grin overtaking his features. 

“Duh,” is Peter’s quick response, with something like exasperated amusement. Then he remembers who he is speaking to. “I mean, yes, Mr Odinson, Sir.”

“Huzzah!” Thor cries, and smacks Natasha on the back hard enough to almost knock her off her seat. 

“Peter, are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Natasha wheezes, struggling to get the air back into her lungs after Thor’s celebratory pat. 

Peter suddenly looks unsure again. “I don’t know. Maybe. If what you think I’m saying is that my aunt is into you, then yes.”

“Peter, I really need you to be clear with me because I am pretty intoxicated right now. Your aunt, May Parker, likes me. Like likes me?” Natasha hates the way her voice sounds, almost whiny and needy, but can’t be bothered to do anything about it. Not when it’s taking all of her considerable willpower to not run out the door and track May down. 

“Yeah, Nat. My aunt wants to be your girlfriend.” Again, there’s that amused exasperation mixed with a very clear “duh” tone. 

May is bi. May is into women. May is into Natasha. May wants Natasha to be her girlfriend. May wants to be Natasha’s girlfriend. May wants to be girlfriends. 

“Holy shit,” she whispers, but Peter hears her and grins. 

“Let us go and sweep the fair maiden off her feet,” Thor says boisterously, with a very wide grin of his own. 

“No. No way. I am too drunk for declarations of...” Too soon, too soon, her brain screeches. “Like.” 

“Nonsense, Natasha Romanov. As a matter of fact, there is no time like the present.” And with that, he sweeps her into his arms and throws her over his shoulder. “Now, young Peter Parker, where does your aunt reside?”

“Um, Queens,” he squeaks. 

“To Queens, my friends,” Thor says and heads for the nearest exit, Peter close on his heels. Natasha glares down at Peter from her very uncomfortable perch on Thor’s shoulders, but Peter’s smile has a way of bringing out Natasha’s, and this time is no exception. 

What follows is a harrowing ride to Queens on the shoulders of a Norse God who uses a hammer as his primary mode of transportation. Not the best way for drunk Natasha to travel. She spends most of the trip trying not to vomit, though she cannot decisively say whether it’s because of the booze or nerves. And too soon, and not soon enough, they are landing in front of the Parker residence. 

“She should be off work now,” Peter says as he comes to a stop next to them. “I’m just gonna get out of here. And I’ll take Thor with me. Think he’d like some ice cream?”

“What is iced cream?” Thor asks as he sets Natasha down, who wobbles slightly and stumbles toward the bushes, looking distinctly green. 

“Oh, man. You’re gonna love it.” Natasha can tell from his voice that Peter is smiling behind his mask. 

“I expect that I will, Peter Parker.” Thor then turns to the unsteady Natasha and claps her on the shoulder. “Good luck, my friend. May your union be blessed.”

“I hate you so much right now,” she hisses, fighting against the urge to throw up into May’s hedges. 

“It will be okay, Nat. I promise,” Peter says, grabbing her hand and squeezing. “She really likes you. So go and get her.”

“What? No shovel talk?” Natasha asks, only half joking. 

But Peter laughs nonetheless. “Nah, that’s for next time. I figure you need all the support you can get right now.”

Natasha rolls her eyes and lightly shoved Peter. “When did you get so wise?” 

“Stop stalling and get in there,” he chuckles. “I’ve got a god to take for ice cream, after all.”

Now it’s his turn to shove her, but in the direction of the front porch. She doesn’t dignify his remark with a response, instead choosing to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and looking like she wasn’t just about to get sick in the street. 

When she gets to the door, she turns to see Thor and Peter giving her two thumbs up each before they turn to leave. God, she’s going to kill them. 

Taking a deep breath, she reaches up her fist and knocks. After all, there’s no sense in procrastinating. Fortunately, the ride over here sobered her up quite a bit. Dangling over the shoulder of a god a good thousand feet up will do that. 

Sober-ish her still has the same reservations as the intoxicated one. But she knows that should she flee from this door, she wouldn’t get very far before Thor and Peter hunted her down. And it wasn’t like she could avoid May forever. 

(Well, she could. But the problem was that she didn’t want to. That’s almost the last thing that she wants to do.)

And Peter wouldn’t lie to her. Yes, he liked his jokes, but he wasn’t cruel. And she could see how earnest he was. So maybe, just maybe, things would be okay. Maybe for once in her life, things could go right. 

Natasha hears the lock turn and then the door is opening. 

It’s May. Of course it’s May, but in this moment there’s something so incredible about her opening the door. She looks lovely, as always. A big smile and warm brown eyes, squinted slightly, as they always are when she forgets her glasses. She opens the door wide when she sees Natasha and leans up against the door jamb. 

“Nat, what a surprise! I was just thinking about you.” 

Natasha gulps, and tries not to focus on the strip of skin that shows when May crosses her arms. She makes herself focus on May’s face, but that’s a danger of its own. She could get lost in May’s eyes if she’s not careful. “You were?”

“Yeah,” May smiles. “It is your turn to pick for movie night. Oh, and I was going to text you and ask what you felt like eating. We just had Chinese last week. Do we feel like Thai or is it more of a greasy pizza kind of night?” 

“Um, Thai. Peter loves larb.” Natasha clears her throat, a little awkwardly, but May doesn’t seem to notice. 

“He does. He could eat a lot even before the whole Spider-Man thing, but now it’s like I’ve got three teenage boys under this roof, not just one.” May chuckles, but then she freezes. “Is everything okay? Is that why you’re here? Is Peter alright?”

“Oh, god. No, Peter’s okay! I’m sorry, May. I should have thought about that. What else would you think?” Nat reaches out a hand and touches May’s arm without thinking, but as soon as she makes contact, she remembers herself and pulls back. 

Clearing her throat, she continues, “Peter’s around here somewhere. Last time I saw him he was taking Thor out for ice cream.”

May lets out a breath that turns into a chuckle, a smile coming back to her face. “Okay, that’s good. You had me a little worried there. You seem kind of off.”

“Yeah, about that...” Natasha trails off. This is it. Her chance. If only she can open her mouth and say the words. If only she can be open and honest. 

So much of her life has been about lying, about hiding the truth, about burying who she was. These moments are always the hardest. The moments when she has to be open and honest, and wants to be, but cannot find it in herself to speak. Natasha is smart and brave as hell, but sometimes she feels like such a coward. 

A coward who should leave. Who should back away without entangling herself any further into May’s life. She should go. 

She opens her mouth to make her excuses, any excuse, but May has used this moment to truly look at Natasha, and Nat can only imagine what she sees. 

“Do you wanna come in and sit down? You look like you’re about to fall over.” May’s smile is soft, and she steps aside to allow Natasha in. 

It’s that smile that does her in. May is so good and kind and understanding. She’s been so accepting of all of Natasha’s attitudes and behaviours, even the ones hardwired into her by the Red Room and SHIELD. Like never being comfortable in a crowded place, or always needing to face the exit when they eat out. The way she has to suppress the urge to knock some guy out when he gets too handsy, or the flippant way she brushes off May’s concern about her own health and safety. 

This could be another one of those times. She could go in and pretend like nothing’s wrong, pretend like she hasn’t been struggling for weeks with this secret pressing up against her ribcage. She could brush off May’s concern again, make herself laugh and smile at all the right times, and then escape hours later knowing that it had all been false. 

Or she could take a chance. She could be honest with May and tell her the truth about her feelings. And then who knows. Peter had said that May liked her. There was a chance, a good one. 

And so she makes the call. 

Never one to hesitate once a plan of action was in place, Natasha charges ahead. 

“No, I have something to say first.” Natasha balls her hands into fists and forces herself to meet May’s eyes. There’s confusion there, but no dread or fear. Just concern. And affection. And that gives Nat courage. 

Taking a deep breath, Natasha speaks, “I really like you, May. And not to sound juvenile, but I like like you. The kind of like that makes me want to hold your hand and kiss your cheek and wake up next to you in the morning. I love spending Friday nights here with you and Peter. I love your obsession with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movies and Peter’s love of both 80’s slashers and musicals. I love the way that your stove is out to get you, even though that means you live on a diet of take out and salads. But once a week is not enough for me. And it’s not enough for me to be just your friend any more. I want more.”

There is silence, with only the sound of them breathing and the usual Queens background noise to break it. Natasha keeps her eyes resolutely in May’s face, trying to track any expression, but for once, May’s face is blank. 

Just as Natasha is preparing to make her excuses and run away, May speaks. 

“Well, that’s just rude.”

“What?”

“It’s rude. I’ve spent a month planning on how  
I was going to ask you out and you just come in and drop that on me.”

“What?” Natasha repeats, her eyebrows climbing high on her forehead. 

“It was going to be one Friday, during our coffee. Peter was going to go and save Queens from some minor problem. And I was going to ask you to go out to that new Mexican place.” May smiled then, “I know that you like to wait with me when he has to go out on Fridays. So you would be trapped and I could ask without worrying about you running off.”

“Um, okay.” Natasha pauses, “It took you a month to come up with that?” 

“There are a lot of variables, okay? You’re a hard one to pin down.” May rolls her eyes with a smile. “Plus I like having you around, Nat. I had to make sure I wasn’t about to scare you off.”

“I think it’s safe to say that you didn’t,” Natasha says as it all begins to sink it. Peter was right. May does like her. “So ask.”

“Huh?” May is smiling at her, a little dopily. 

“Ask me.”

“Oh. Oh, okay.” May takes a breath and her expression turns serious. “Natasha, will you go to dinner with me? As a date, though.”

“A month?” 

“Hey, stop teasing me and answer my question.”

In lieu of an answer, however, Natasha quickly moves towards May and kisses her. It’s soft and sweet, but filled with all of Natasha’s longing. She puts all the weeks of pining and the affection from the weeks before that into it. May is not much taller than her, but Natasha pushes up onto her toes and wraps an arm around May’s waist, threading the other hand into her hair. 

After a few moments of surprise, May kisses her back. It’s a mess of teeth and tongue, all the awkward of a first passionate kiss, but to Natasha, it’s perfect. And only once the need for air becomes impossible to ignore does she pull away. 

“Does that answer your question?” Natasha says, her voice husky. 

“Not really,” May laughs, a blush visible in her cheeks. “Would you mind repeating that?”

“Any time,” Natasha grins, and she does. 

Natasha can’t be entirely sure how much time passes as she kisses May on her porch, but eventually a voice breaks through the haze. 

“Huzzah!”

Natasha doesn’t even bother to look, just lifts her hand from May’s waist and flips them the bird. 

She’ll deal with them later.


End file.
